Kate is a feminist, left-leaning and passionate comedian, and she is also funny. She started the show chatting to the audience, finding out a little about us, and sort of eased into the actual show in a very casual way. During the show we learned about Kate’s dad and his not-quite-success as father of the bride at her sister’s wedding, so earning him relegation to guest when Kate was married in January. We hear the story about her mum’s disastrous trip up to see her at the festival, which turned out alright because Barry Cryer made her a ‘personal’ video. We hear how Kate managed to sneak up onto the fourth plinth in Trafalgar square and I particularly enjoyed the time she had a debate with Peter Stringfellow about the merits of pornography. We are also told of the news stories which the BBC don’t seem to think are important enough to report on (you know, the trivial stuff about girlie things like female genital mutilation and sex-slavery in the UK).
Some topics are often not traditional comedy material, but Kate does her best to keep the bad stuff in the world to a minimum while keeping the audience entertained. I did find something a bit weird though, when she was talking about Northern Ireland and how the girls have to fly over to the mainland for abortions. Yes, she said mainland when referring to England. She also talked about the NI girls coming to the UK, which I though NI was already a part of. Something unconscious there coming out perhaps?
But on the whole, for an hour as part of the free fringe, this was very entertaining and thought provoking stuff, in a lovely little room hidden away in the back streets of the New Town but it is not for everyone as it does challenge many traditional stereotypes.
Visit the Edinburgh Fringe website for booking details